Merrymaking after pandemic

LAYERS OF SMILES Wearing big smiles under colorful masks, students prepare for their performance during the MassKara Festival celebration in Bacolod City in 2015. —KARLOSMANLUPIG

(Last of two parts)

Pulling the tourism industry out of the hole created by the coronavirus pandemic will be a tough exercise, especially for provinces that rely on festivals, natural attractions, and local culture, history and cuisine to lure visitors.

Once the lockdown is lifted, every recovery plan being developed by tourism-reliant communities must contend with restrictions on movement that may be around until next year or until a cure or vaccine for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) becomes available.

The biggest impact could be felt on the next staging of crowd-drawing community festivals that bring a seasonal lift to local economies.

Indigenous feasts

The Department of Tourism (DOT) has yet to report on the full impact of the COVID-19 crisis on festivals staged in the Cordillera. Most of the communities in the region, which have thriving agricultural economies, hold festivals that were originally ritual gatherings to celebrate bountiful harvests and retooled to draw tourists.

Elders will need to resolve how the quarantine affects communal activities, like the “cañao” (ritual feasts), “but Cordillera tribes can be flexible,” says Cameron Odsey, regional director of the Department of Agriculture.

In Baguio City, reopening hotels and restaurants is among the last priorities outlined in a draft transition plan that seeks to jump-start its economy.

Without a vaccine, public activities under a relaxed quarantine would be limited to buying items to maintain social distancing, says Mayor Benjamin Magalong.

No longer just a tourist area, Baguio has emerged as the education center and a financial hub in Cordillera. From February to May last year, it drew 540,373 tourists, generating gross receipts of up to P1.4 billion, which the city could no longer earn this year due to the lockdown.

The Christmas season, the Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival) and Holy Week make up Baguio’s peak tourist season.

Tourist arrivals dipped from 267,247 visitors in 2019 to 99,783 this year as COVID-19 paranoia started to build up. The border lockdown closed 518 hotels and inns and affected more than 4,000 workers.

Marketing campaign

Hotels and other big players in the tourism sector are prepared to launch a marketing campaign to lure back visitors under a program called “Angat Baguio,” to be followed by the more aggressive promotional campaign called “Akyat Baguio.”

But the Baguio community needs to rebuild confidence in its tourism program. When the pandemic struck, the city was in the midst of a redevelopment program due to overcrowding, which many residents attributed to unchecked tourism activities and migration.

The absence of visitors gave Baguio parks and forestland time to recover and the city government an opportunity to start putting in place a management system or a control system for the influx of tourists.

Virtual celebrations

In Batangas province, nine fiestas calendared in May were canceled, with the province still under a community quarantine, says Sylvia Marasigan, head of Batangas Tourism and Culture Office.

“It’s dead now,” Marasigan says of local tourism.

With most her staff working from home, Marasigan says tourism and cultural workers are shifting to a new norm, by practically holding “virtual celebrations” if only to keep people from forgetting what’s there to celebrate.

These include fiestas in honor of Catholic saints or the birth and death anniversaries of national heroes, but minus the colorful floats, the street dancing or extravagant feasts.

“In Alitagtag and Bauan (towns), they have this very small gathering, of course still observing social distancing, in the chapel, which is aired for online viewing,” she said.

During Holy Week, Lipa City streamed an “online Pabasa” (Passion of Christ).

With a deeply devoted Catholic community, Marasigan trusts festivals in Batangas will eventually return although taking a “new approach” after the pandemic.

Right now, “you just have to keep thinking [of ways] or else [tourism and culture] will die,” she says.

In Quezon province, Alberto Bay, provincial tourism officer, sees the absence of tourists during the lockdown and succeeding months as an opportunity for the province’s beaches, falls, caves and mountains “to replenish and recover.”

Domestic market

In Camarines Norte province, tourism officials are encouraging domestic travel as one of the ways to rebuild the local economy.

Mariano Palma, provincial tourism officer, says the DOT will also suggest to local governments to hold their meetings and seminars in local hotels that offer substantial discounts.

The department, he says, will “aggressively promote” Camarines Norte as a tourist destination, especially after the province lost its chance to celebrate its 100th founding anniversary this year.

Palma says that before the outbreak, Camarines Norte was “all systems go” for the celebrations.

“We were already expecting that on the first day alone, more than 50,000 tourists would have already been here,” he says, noting that 100 activities had been prepared for the celebration.

In Mindanao, April Marjorie Rudes, Sarangani province tourism officer, says the temporary closure of beaches in Glan town has affected at least 259 workers. The province stages the annual Sarangani Bay Festival, described as the biggest beach party in Mindanao.

But even if quarantine measures are eased, beach resorts in Glan would not be allowed to open, since leisure activities would not resume in the meantime, Rudes says.

Cebu plans

In Cebu, preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Christianization of the Philippines in 2021 were shelved by the pandemic. Public events for the 455th celebration of the Kaplag (the discovery of the Sto. Niño) on April 28 had been canceled.

Many fear that the coronavirus will also take its toll on big events next year, including the Fiesta Señor and the Sinulog in January.

“Preparations for the Fiesta Señor usually start by June. If things don’t change by that time, we really have to make the necessary adjustments,” says Fr. Aladdin Luzon, OSA, chair of the Provincial Committee of the Sto. Niño at 500.

Aside from the usual religious and cultural events in January, Cebu is set to host the reenactment of the first Catholic baptism in the Philippines on April 14, 2021, while Limasawa Island in Southern Leyte is expected to be the venue of the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in the country on March 31, 2021.

Tourism and local officials, as well as business leaders in the Visayas, have not decided on whether or not to push through with their festivals and fiestas once the lockdown is lifted due to the uncertainties amid the pandemic.

What is certain is that restaurants and other related businesses will have to implement innovations to ensure that safety and health measures are observed, says Happy Abenir, spokesperson for Iloilo Hotels, Resorts and Restaurants Association.

“Operations would most likely still focus on deliveries and takeout services instead of dining in establishments,” she says.

Iloilo City Tourism Officer Junel Ann Divinagracia says festival organizers will have to ensure that physical distancing and wearing of face masks will be observed in events.

Health over wealth

The holding of the MassKara Festival in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, in October is still far from the minds of city officials.

“Given what we have gone through, what we are investing into this [fight against COVID-19], we should not think in terms of festivals at all at the moment. We are concentrating on this health problem first and foremost— this is a matter of survival,” says Mayor Evelio Leonardia.

He, however, admits that millions of pesos in revenues would be lost if the MassKara, Bacolod’s biggest festival, will not push through.

“However, everything else will have to come in second to the health of the people. It is a choice between health and wealth, and we chose health,” he says.

Leonardia says it may even take years before people will celebrate festivals the way they used to.

“Even if a festival is held next year, I don’t think people will be as free as a bird as they used to be. It will not be just like clicking your light [switch] on and off; it will not happen that way,” he says.

—REPORTS FROM MARICAR CINCO, DELFIN MALLARI JR., TONETTE OREJAS, YOLANDA SOTELO, VINCENT CABREZA, CARLA GOMEZ, NESTOR BURGOS JR., ADOR VINCENT MAYOL, JOEY GABIETA, BONG SARMIENTO AND ROMMEL REBOLLIDO